Abstract

On 7 January 2011, a six year-old child living in a Roma community near Seville, southern Spain, was hospitalised with measles. Contact tracing identified a probable index case with onset of symptoms on 20 December 2011 and several unreported cases among children under the age of 15 years in the same town. The outbreak initially spread in districts in the city of Seville with a high proportion of Roma residents, and later to other cities and towns in Andalusia. While some towns experienced wide spread of the disease with significant clusters of cases, most of the affected locations saw non-clustered cases or very few secondary cases. The outbreak resulted in 1,759 confirmed or probable cases of which 393 (19%) required hospitalisation. Measles virus of genotype D4 was diagnosed in more than half of the cases. Significant differences (p<0.0001) by age group were found between clustered and non-clustered cases. The highest proportion of clustered cases occurred in the age group of 5-14 year-olds, while the highest proportion of non-clustered cases was seen in those older than 29 years. The last confirmed case related to this outbreak was reported on 20 August 2011.

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This year’s EFSA conference, Science, Food, Society, is constructed around the motto ‘contextualising risk assessment’ and will take place from 18–21 September in Parma. The call for posters is now open and early career researchers are particularly encouraged to submit a proposal by 2 April.

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A public call for expressions of interest as Commission appointees to the Advisory Forum of ECDC has been made. The selection procedure is looking to appoint representatives of non-governmental organisations representing patients, professional bodies or academia. The deadline for applications is 16 February 2018. Click here for more info.